but still, you're magnificent
by BerryliciousCheerio
Summary: Careers aren't supposed to fall in love, are they?


**So, I'm finally giving in and trying my hand at The Hunger Games. I always am nervous about writing for a fandom that I love, so I guess if I don't post this now, I'll make excuses to not to later on. Maybe in a little bit, you might catch me writing Katniss/Peeta... **

**Disclaimer: Do I look like the genius that came up with the masterpiece that is The Hunger Games? No? I thought not...**

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><p><em><strong>commence<strong>_

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><p><strong><em>clove/_**

**...**

She doesn't think it's fair at all. Everyone roots for the star-crossed-lovers-from-twelve; everyone waits on bated breath to see if they're okay, everyone cheers for them when the Capitol changes the rules to accommodate their love. She knows that she and Cato aren't the pair they plan on sending home. Because, well, no one cares about Careers, do they?

**...**

It starts when she's twelve. He watches her send a knife through the heart of a dummy, and smiles. She writes it off as simple admiration, because Careers aren't supposed to fall in love, are they?

**...**

When she's thirteen and he's almost fifteen, he kisses her when none of the Academy instructors are looking. He pins her to the wall and grins, and presses his lips to hers silently. For the first time in a long time, she feels something other than an adrenaline rush or bloodlust. She pushes him away abruptly, harshly, because Careers don't feel, do they?

**...**

It continues, just like that, with illegal kisses when people are looking in the other direction. Sometimes she starts it, sometimes he does. It doesn't matter because it never lasts, does it?

**...**

The night before the Reaping, they're tangled up together, so tangled she doubts they could figure out a way to separate their bodies (not that she'd want to), somewhere out in the forest where no one can see them. He says, maybe to her, maybe to himself, maybe to no one at all, "I'm volunteering tomorrow."

And terror courses through her veins, even though, for the past three years, she's been telling herself not to get attached, that this day, this announcement would come eventually. She doesn't say anything, just tightens her arms around his waist, as if it'll keep him there, with her.

When his breathing evens out, she whispers viciously at the sky, "Damn you." She's not sure who's she's talking to, maybe no one, maybe everyone. But she's pretty sure he's not going to come back to her, because he's no prince, and she's sure that damsels shouldn't know how to kill, should they?

**...**

He volunteers in the place of a quivering twelve year old. And then, god, and then her name is pulled from the bowl. No one volunteers in her place, because she's been training since she was five. She should be able to take care of herself, shouldn't she?

**...**

She hates the girl-from-twelve on sight. She doesn't need a reason, because Careers are raised to hate, raised to kill. At the first training session, she decides that she wants to be the one that kills her; she wants to be the one to drain the life from her. She wants to watch this girl die.

The second the girl-from-one flutters her ridiculously long eyelashes at Cato, she decides that she wants her blood on her hands as well. But, she's not jealous, is she?

**...**

The girl-on-fire irks her, and Loverboy makes her sick, just because he said he loved the girl-on-fire, and Cato said nothing about the girl-from-two. But, she doesn't let it show, because she's here to win, no matter what the cost, and love is nothing but empty promises in the dark and absolutely meaningless kisses when people aren't watching, right?

**...**

The initial bloodbath is exhilarating. The feel of blood slipping through her fingers, the dying whimpers; she's been raised to enjoy this, and oh, does she ever. She loses Cato in the madness, and when all is said and done, she has to swallow her panic.

He's strong and big, bigger than most, he'll be okay. She almost wishes he wasn't, so that he'd be killed by someone else's hand. But, he's too good for that, isn't he?

**...**

Her fingers twitch towards her knives when the girl-from-one all but throws herself onto Cato to go to sleep. She rests her head on his arm, presses her back to his chest, and twists her neck (oh, she could just _snap _it!) to smile coyly at him (she wants to forcibly remove that smirk. Like, forever). He does not attempt to disentangle himself from the blonde, flirting, giggling, sickening mass.

This does not bother her. Her heart does not squeeze painfully as she curls around herself, facing the opposite direction as to not see that absolutely revolting sight. She does not spend more time than normal thinking about how to draw out the girl-from-one's death. She also does not let out a breath she didn't know she was holding when Cato kisses her roughly the night after the Tracker Jacker attack and breathes in her ear, "She was _so_ annoying." Because, this isn't love, is it?

**...**

She thinks Loverboy sees them. Not physically sees them, because they're always so careful at making sure they aren't followed when they sneak off at night, but she thinks he figures it out pretty soon after joining the alliance.

Maybe he sees the carefully masked panic in her eyes when Cato goes off to find food and the cannon fires while he's still gone. Maybe he catches the brush of their fingers as the group goes trekking through the forest. Honestly, it doesn't matter, because if the nimrod-from-twelve can see it, everyone else can too.

Only they don't.

So she heaves a sigh of relief and goes back to figuring out the best way to make her death look like an accident, because there can only be one victor, right?

**...**

"I want you to kill me, when it comes time."

She looks up in surprise at his outburst, fearing for his sanity. It has been an unspoken rule of sorts to not talk about who would win, and what it would take for them to get there, not when they're blissfully alone, knowing that every camera is trained on the star-crossed-lovers-from-twelve.

"Cato-."

"I'm serious. It's going to come down to you and me, and when that happens, kill me."

When. He said when. She bites her lip and tucks her face in the space between his neck and his shoulder, breathing him in, memorizing his scent. When. No, it would not come to that. She would not let it. But, somewhere, deep in the recesses of her cold, blackened heart, she fears it will, because the Capitol wants a good show, right?

**...**

She doesn't kill the girl-from-eleven, but she wishes she had. From her vantage point in a tree, she watches as the girl-on-fire burns out. She almost laughs. She could kill her then, she decides, as she toys with the knife in her hand. But then the girl-on-fire is moving, and she's covering the little girl in flowers.

She's so mesmerized by the act; she doesn't even realize that her chance to eliminate her enemy is slipping away. She stays in the tree for another hour staring at the still figure, and she is hit with how _sick_ this all is. She pushes the thought aside quickly, because she's a damn Career, and they don't think like that, do they?

**...**

She attacks the girl-on-fire, taunts her with the girl-from-eleven's death, because, even if she didn't actually send the spear into the little girl's abdomen, she was the one that was willing to. And, god, the boy-from-eleven comes out of nowhere, crushing her neck, pressing her to the Cornucopia.

She screams for Cato, screams and screams and screams with what she fears are her dying breaths, but, dammit, he doesn't come running out of the trees. And she knows that they do not deserve a fairytale ending, she knows that he is not a knight in shining armor, but, god, she wishes he was, that he would run in and slaughter the boy-from-eleven, torture the girl-on-fire, _save her_. She is slammed, repeatedly, against the cold metal, and her final thought is, _Careers aren't supposed to die this way, are they?_

**...**

**.cato.**

**...**

He meets her when he's fourteen, with a two year age gap between them. She sends a knife into a dummy's heart, and flushes when he smiles at her. He decides she's different than the other Career girls. He also decides he likes her. A lot.

**...**

He swear she kisses him first, because he's such a good Career, he'd never endanger that for a girl. Not even a girl with this beautiful dark hair, and these gorgeous brown eyes, and this sexy little predatory smirk. No, not even for a girl like that.

**...**

He suggests running away as a joke, but not. He knows that, even with the odds in their favor, even with all their training, he knows that at any time, one of them could be Reaped, and god, he knows that, come eighteen, he'll volunteer and he might wind up dead (though he strongly doubts it). So, he mentions it during one of their nights in the forest. She slaps his chest and calls him a coward. He agrees, but doesn't.

**...**

Briefly, ever so briefly, he thinks about their future. Imagines her saying yes to him, imagines her stomach round and heavy with their child, imagines her with graying hair and wrinkles around those mesmerizing eyes. But then she smiles at him, and pulls him back. And he only slightly wishes she hadn't.

**...**

He volunteers, as planned, and takes his place on the stage. What he doesn't expect is that, out of the thousands of names, hers is drawn. Her expression is schooled, confident, that of a girl who knows what she's doing, but when they face each other to shake hands, he sees the unadulterated terror in her eyes, and it's all he can do to keep from kissing her, right then, in front of everyone and declaring, "I will die for Clove."

**...**

(he wishes he had)

**...**

The games are brutal, as expected, and exhilarating. He kills five in the initial bloodbath, but loses sight of her in the chaos. He finds her later, and he's never been so relieved.

**...**

The girl from one, Glimmer or something girly like that, attaches to him like a sea urchin, sticking close to his side and batting her eyelashes at him flirtatiously. Over her blonde head, he catches Clove glaring at her, boring holes into her, and he can _see_ her figuring out how to kill her. And, honestly, he likes seeing her jealous, so he smirks and lets Glimmer sleep on his arm.

**...**

He tells her to kill him, when the time comes. He feels her grip on him tighten, and she starts to say something, starts to protest, but he stops her. She doesn't argue after that.

**...**

When she screams his name, when he hears the absolute, mind-numbing fear in her voice, he runs. And runs. And runs. But he knows before he even sees her that she's gone, he's too late. He sees the girl from twelve (Catnip? Katnick? No, Katniss. Katniss Something-or-other) running off with her package.

No cameras are on him when he rolls her over, sees her eyes, god, her eyes empty and dull, and gently closes them, the only thought in his head her name, over and over, and, oh, god, _Clove, I love you_.

**...**

(he opens their (his, now) bottle and nearly vomits. the label on the bottle clearly reads 'Pre-Natal Vitamins')

**...**

(he wonders if she knew)

**...**

(but he knows that if she did, it's just another secret she took to her grave)

**...**

(he keeps it with him until he dies)

**...**

He doesn't even really want to live; he'd have been willing to have been shot immediately, if he didn't blame Miss. Katniss Everdeen for her death. He has already killed Thresh, beaten him half to death and then threw him to the mutts to be killed slowly, tortuously, and he wants to her the girl on fire suffer.

So, he grabs Loverboy.

The look on her face is worth it, worth all of it. As is the arrow she uses to put him out of his misery when the mutts are tearing into his flesh. The last thing he sees are Clove's (no, not Clove. Capitol generated mutt) eyes, cold and deadly, and accusing. Nothing less than what he deserves, he muses.

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><p><strong><em>fin<em>**

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><p><strong>So, I hope that this was good! And I also hope that all your reviews won't be, like, 'OMG, THEY'RE SO OUT OF CHARACTER, YOU'VE TURNED THEM INTO MUSHY ROMANTICS, GO DIE IN A HOLE'. This is my first time writing ruthless killers! Cut me a little slack, please? <strong>

**Anyway, contest time! The first person to review and guess correctly what song the title came from will win the right to request a THG oneshot, any character, any pairing, rated T or under. So, get to reviewing!**


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